Music
Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Keith Bruce, four stars
CONDUCTOR Valeri Polyansky is a big man who has no need of a podium to be visible to the members of the orchestra he has directed for a quarter of a century. There is nothing flowery about his conducting style, his gestural vocabulary sometimes bold but always crisp, while often it dwindles to hardly anything at all. Long before his pantomime with the principal cello during the trio of encores – and departure while the orchestra played on, scores tucked under his arm – it was very clear whose show this was.
Nonetheless, it was probably glamourous pianist Valentina Lisitsa, whose career has been built on her postings on YouTube, who was responsible for attracting a good house to the first orchestral event to go ahead in Scotland in days. Her account of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No3 was always articulate and integrated with the orchestral ensemble, but her first movement cadenza a little over-pedalled and indistinct. The dynamism she unleashed in the finale, however, was well worth the patience.
Concert orchestras are not always built to service dance music, by Polyansky and his Russians would surely suit any ballet company to judge by their performance of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Suite. Its five movement structure may confuse those more familiar with the entire score but makes perfect musical sense on its own, culminating in the familiar melody of the birthday Waltz.
By contrast, the pause the conductor took between the virtuosic pizzicato Scherzo of the same composer’s Fourth Symphony and its explosive finale, where other conductors now often proceed immediately, did seem a little out of time. It was a small detail, but slightly diminished a performance that tripped lightly between the weighty “Fate” motifs of the work and its lighter dance textures. There were some fine solo performances throughout the work, but it was the gorgeous tone of the principal bassoon that particularly stood out.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here